Ridiculous comments and claims made by City Councillors

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Oy vey! This again!

I am hardly the only one raising this issue:

Sean Galbraith ‏@PlannerSean
I was curious where in Toronto you’re only allowed to build a single-detached home, so I made a map. Yellow= no #gentledensity #topoli

https://twitter.com/PlannerSean/status/792909043450912768

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This is an issue of fairness as to where developmental pressures are allowed to build.

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Heh, and how much of that has contributed to our housing supply shortage and rising real estate prices?

Infrastructure notwithstanding, a moratorium on condos in downtown core will not make housing prices more affordable, or make it easier for young people to become home-owners.

Which is why I don't support it - but not supporting that doesn't mean the current trend to cram at a few corridors and let said precedents to lead development typologies is desirable.

AoD

 

[ADRM]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the cry that nearly every councillor and many (most?) residents in the city need to here is: "Toronto is NOT dense and even if literally every current development proposal were approved as-is, it would still not be dense."

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Which is why I don't support it - but not supporting that doesn't mean the current trend to cram at a few corridors and let said precedents to lead development typologies is desirable.

AoD

Cramming people into a single corridor is not necesarially bad. It is easier to service a densely built corridor than single-detached residential neighbourhood. The problem is we need to accomodate said corridor with infrastructure.

Development typology precedents is another issue. You know me, always flaunting around the Missing Middle Housing website, we can address housing affordability, accessibility and supply by loosening our planning to allow townhouses and duplexes in stable low-storey residential neighbourhoods.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Cramming people into a single corridor is not necesarially bad. It is easier to service a densely built corridor than single-detached residential neighbourhood. The problem is we need to accomodate said corridor with infrastructure.

Development typology precedents is another issue. You know me, always flaunting around the Missing Middle Housing website, we can address housing affordability, accessibility and supply by loosening our planning to allow townhouses and duplexes in stable low-storey residential neighbourhoods.

That is one dimension - but look at the broader picture - why is it so difficult to build transit across the city? The issue isn't that certain corridors in the core isn't dense enough (because they are) - but that there is precious little density beyond the core to support higher order infrastructure above and beyond the current trunk line-bus feeder system in a way that doesn't break the bank.

AoD

 

[Skeezix]

I am hardly the only one raising this issue:

I saw those tweets. Same misinformation. The lower density neighbourhoods in our core are not somehow the only place to grow the city. There are so many better alternatives that this 1960s urban renewal fetish.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I saw those tweets. Same misinformation. The lower density neighbourhoods in our core are not somehow the only place to grow the city. There are so many better alternatives that this 1960s urban renewal fetish.

"Better" for whom? Is it a fetish - or is it a sense of entitlement that somehow they are the only ones who should be shielded from reasonable development pressures that every other city faces? Just what is so special about detached housing that it represents the pinnacle of desirability and good planning?

AoD

 

[Skeezix]

That is one dimension - but look at the broader picture - why is it so difficult to build transit across the city? The issue isn't that certain corridors in the core isn't dense enough (because they are) - but that there is precious little density beyond the core to support higher order infrastructure above and beyond the current trunk line-bus feeder system in a way that doesn't break the bank.

AoD

Yeah, and the City needs to get serious about midrise development along all of the arterials, and high-rise development along transit corridors outside the core. No need to bulldoze lower density neighbourhoods to increase densities.

 

[Skeezix]

Better for whom?

AoD

Better for the city. Much better than bulldozing neighbourhoods.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Better for the city. Much better than bulldozing neighbourhoods.

No one is suggesting we bulldoze neigbhourhoods en masse - the issue is why we don't even allow for incremental changes in them? Why immutability? You are demanding that everyone else change first except DROs.

AoD

 

[Skeezix]

That's precisely what you have been suggesting. You don't like the word bulldozer, but be frank. You keep talking about how all these high-rise proposals flow from the City's refusal to open up the Neighbourhoods, but do you seriously think that the incremental introduction of townhouses and walk-ups is ever going to provide that same density or counter the need for the high-rises? Not without 1960s-style blockbusting it won't. And do you honestly think these townhomes will help affordability? When we have townhouses in Regent Park along Shuter Street starting at $1.2 million. Your general statements = bulldozing neighbourhoods. Let's not pretend it would be anything else.

You are demanding that everyone else change first except DROs.

I don't even know how to start with this. We shouldn't be naturally intensifying arterials and transit corridors? We have tens of thousands of large, way underdeveloped sites throughout this city, along busy corridors which can easily accommodate higher order transit, where the sites are often deep enough to accommodate higher densities and heights, but we should start by knocking down houses in Cabbagetown? (Oh wait, you said Cabbagetown could be saved - there seems to be a subjective/aesthetic element to this.)

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

That's precisely what you have been suggesting. You don't like the word bulldozer, but be frank. You keep talking about how all these high-rise proposals flow from the City's refusal to open up the Neighbourhoods, but do you seriously think that the incremental introduction of townhouses and walk-ups is ever going to provide that same density or counter the need for the high-rises? Not without 1960s-style blockbusting it won't. And do you honestly think these townhomes will help affordability? When we have townhouses in Regent Park along Shuter Street starting at $1.2 million. Your general statements = bulldozing neighbourhoods. Let's not pretend it would be anything else.

I don't even know how to start with this. We shouldn't be naturally intensifying arterials and transit corridors? We have tens of thousands of large, way underdeveloped sites throughout this city, along busy corridors which can easily accommodate higher order transit, where the sites are often deep enough to accommodate higher densities and heights, but we should start by knocking down houses in Cabbagetown? (Oh wait, you said Cabbagetown could be saved - there seems to be a subjective/aesthetic element to this.)

I didn't say it will eliminate the need for highrises - because that is never the intent. No one suggesting that we stop building them and have all efforts placed on levelling existing DROs to accommodate all the projected growth. The intent is to allow for a more reasonable amount of density instead of the ridiculous 40+ FSI that we are seeing now because the availability of land is limited. Also, I didn't say anything about affordability - that is a red herring - are the DROs in Toronto currently all that affordable right now, and expected to be so as availability further tightens? Do you think that townhouses in RP will be 1.2 million in the future when you can't even put it anywhere else (like we should waste land in the core or arterial roads for townhouses?)

Of course there is a subjective element to heritage protection - why else would you use a tool like HCDs? Just to ironclad neighbourhoods from change when there is no heritage value? No one is suggesting we abandon the notion of densifying arterials or the downtown core - one is suggesting that we abandon the notion of resisting any form of intensification in DROs regardless of where they are located and their heritage value. That is the issue.

AoD

 

[ShonTron]

Better for the city. Much better than bulldozing neighbourhoods.

As if anyone is seriously entertaining ideas of St. Jamestown style block-busting for the protected single-family home neighbourhoods.

 

[Skeezix]

I didn't say it will eliminate the need for highrises - because that is never the intent. No one suggesting that we stop building them and have all efforts placed on levelling existing DROs to accommodate all the projected growth. The intent is to allow for a more reasonable amount of density instead of the ridiculous 40+ FSI that we are seeing now because the availability of land is limited. Also, I didn't say anything about affordability - that is a red herring - are the DROs in Toronto currently all that affordable right now, and expected to be so as availability further tightens? Do you think that townhouses in RP will be 1.2 million in the future when you can't even put it anywhere else (like we should waste land in the core or arterial roads for townhouses?)

Of course there is a subjective element to heritage protection - why else would you use a tool like HCDs? Just to ironclad neighbourhoods from change when there is no heritage value? No one is suggesting we abandon the notion of densifying arterials or the downtown core - one is suggesting that we abandon the notion of resisting any form of intensification in DROs regardless of where they are located and their heritage value. That is the issue.

AoD

The availability of land isn't limited. That's a fallacy. The availability of land along major streets where the City won't go ballistic if one proposes more than 2 or 3 storeys (even there, there are no guarantees) is limited. The availability of land where the City talks about midrise development, and actually means it, is limited. The availability of land along major streets in the most desirable locations near good transit and amenities, because Council has repeatedly failed to build higher level transit elsewhere, is limited. And the availability of land where there already is higher level transit, but Council hasn't sought to impose crazy Official Plan policies unreasonably restricting growth along the corridor, is limited. So we get tower proposals downtown. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it's naive to think we can avoid the 40+ FSI proposals without blockbusting.

And if we would not be doing this for affordability, why would we be doing it? To get more high end housing? We not facing a shortage in that regard.

 

[Skeezix]

As if anyone is seriously entertaining ideas of St. Jamestown style block-busting for the protected single-family home neighbourhoods.

Except they are. If we want to take these 40+ FSi proposals and redirect a good chunk of the density in lower density neighbourhoods, it's naive to think it won't be blockbusting.

What I'm hearing is "Oh no, we won't be blockbusting! We'll just be allowing townhouses, maybe some duplexes and triplexes, along with a few 2-3 storey buildings, in low-rise neighbourhoods. And we'll protect elite neighbourhoods which we think are pretty, like Cabbagetown, but we'll target neighbourhoods where the residents are less politically connected." And all that will result in is some really expensive infill development, and we'll still have 40+ FSI proposals downtown.

If people are serious, they need to admit they are planning on using a bulldozer.

ETA: The irony here is that a lot of neighbourhoods in the core and the shoulders are zoned R in the new by-law, and had similar zoning in the former by-laws, which does allow these more intense housing forms as of right. Not in North Toronto, etc., but in a lot of desirable neighbourhoods. And it hasn't in any way decreased the pressure for 40+ FSI towers downtown. So what gives?